After the war, Terror was laid up until March 1828, when she was recommissioned for service in the Mediterranean Sea, but was removed from active service when she underwent repairs for damage suffered near Lisbon, Portugal.[5]

In the mid-1830s, Terror was refitted as a polar exploration vessel. Her design as a bomb ship meant she had an unusually strong framework to resist the recoil of her heavy mortars; thus, she could withstand the pressure of polar sea ice, as well.[2]

A painting by Admiral Sir George Back showing HMS Terror anchored near a cathedral-like iceberg in the waters around Baffin Island

In 1836, command of Terror was given to Captain George Back for an Arctic expedition to Hudson Bay.[2][3] The expedition aimed to enter Repulse Bay, where it would send out landing parties to ascertain whether the Boothia Peninsula was an island or a peninsula. Terror was trapped by ice near Southampton Island, and did not reach Repulse Bay. At one point, the ice forced her 12 m (39 ft) up the face of a cliff.[5] She was trapped in the ice for ten months.[3] In the spring of 1837, an encounter with an iceberg further damaged the ship. She nearly sank on her return journey across the Atlantic,[3] and was in a sinking condition by the time Back was able to beach the ship on the coast of Ireland on 21 September.[5][6]

Terror was repaired and assigned in 1839 to a voyage to the Antarctic along with Erebus under the overall command of James Clark Ross.[2][3]Francis Crozier was commander of Terror on this expedition, as well as second-in-command to Ross.[2] The expedition spanned three seasons from 1840 to 1843 during which Terror and Erebus made three forays into Antarctic waters, traversing the Ross Sea twice, and sailing through the Weddell Sea southeast of the Falkland Islands. The dormant volcano Mount Terror on Ross Island was named after the ship by the expedition commander.[2][5]

Sample of dishware carried by the Terror, showing vessel name and the cypher for King George.

Before leaving on the Franklin expedition, both Erebus and Terror underwent heavy modifications for the journey.[3] They were both outfitted with steam engines, taken from former London and Greenwich Railwaysteam locomotives. Rated at 25 hp (19 kW), each could propel its ship at 4 knots (7.4 km/h). The pair of ships became the first Royal Navy ships to have steam-powered engines and screw propellers.[3] Twelve days' supply of coal was carried.[7] Iron plating was added fore and aft on the ships' hulls to make them more resistant to pack ice, and their decks were cross-planked to distribute impact forces.[3] Along with Erebus, Terror was stocked with supplies for their expedition, which included among other items: two tons of tobacco, 8,000 tins of preserves, and 7,560 L (1,660 imp gal; 2,000 US gal) of liquor. Terror's library had 1,200 books, and the ship's berths were heated via ducts that connected them to the stove.[3]

Their voyage to the Arctic was with Sir John Franklin in overall command of the expedition in Erebus, and Terror again under the command of Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier. The expedition was ordered to gather magnetic data in the Canadian Arctic and complete a crossing of the Northwest Passage, which had already been charted from both the east and west, but never entirely navigated. It was planned to last three years.[3]

The expedition sailed from Greenhithe, Kent, on 19 May 1845, and the ships were last seen entering Baffin Bay in August 1845.[5] The disappearance of the Franklin expedition set off a massive search effort in the Arctic and the broad circumstances of the expedition's fate were revealed during a series of expeditions between 1848 and 1866. Both ships had become icebound and were abandoned by their crews, all of whom died of exposure and starvation while trying to trek overland to Fort Resolution, a Hudson's Bay Company outpost 970 km (600 mi) to the southwest. Subsequent expeditions up until the late 1980s, including autopsies of crew members, revealed that their canned rations may have been tainted by both lead and botulism. Oral reports by local Inuit that some of the crew members resorted to cannibalism were at least somewhat supported by forensic evidence of cut marks on the skeletal remains of crew members found on King William Island during the late 20th century.[8][9]

A British transport ship, Renovation, spotted two ships on a large ice floe off the coast of Newfoundland in April 1851. The identities of the two ships have never been confirmed. It was suggested that these ships may have been Erebus and Terror. Likely, they were abandoned whaling ships.[10]

Sammy Kogvik, an Inuit hunter and member of the Canadian Rangers who joined the crew of the Arctic Research Foundation's Martin Bergmann, recalled an incident from seven years earlier in which he encountered what appeared to be a mast jutting from the ice. With this information, the ship's destination was changed from Cambridge Bay to Terror Bay, where researchers located the wreck in just 2.5 hours.[16][18][19] According to Louie Kamookak, a resident of nearby Gjoa Haven and a historian on the Franklin expedition, Parks Canada had ignored the stories of locals that suggested that the wreck of Terror was in its namesake bay, despite many modern stories of sightings by hunters and from airplanes.[18]

The wreck was found in excellent condition. A wide exhaust pipe that rose from the outer deck was pivotal in identifying the ship. It was located in the same location where the smokestack from Terror's locomotive engine had been installed. The wreck was nearly 100 km (62 mi) south of where historians thought its final resting place was, calling into question the previously accepted account of the fate of the sailors, that they died while trying to walk out of the Arctic to the nearest Hudson's Bay Company trading post.[9]

The location of the wreckage, and evidence in the wreckage of anchor usage, indicates continued use, raising the possibility that some of the sailors had attempted to re-man the ship and sail her home (or elsewhere),[9] possibly on orders from Crozier.[18]

On 23 October 2017 it was announced by the UK's defence minister, Sir Michael Fallon, that his government would be giving HMS Terror as well its sister ship HMS Erebus to Canada, retaining only a few relics and any gold, along with the right to repatriate any human remains.[20]

Terror and Erebus (A Lament for Franklin) (1997) is an oratorio for solo baritone and chamber ensemble by Canadian composer Henry Kucharzyk, adapted from MacEwen's verse drama and crediting her for its libretto.[21]

Dan Simmons' novel The Terror (2007), a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to force the Northwest Passage. In the novel, while Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and illness, and forced to contend with mutiny and cannibalism, they are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by a monster. The novel has been adapted as an eponymous 2018 television series by cable TV channel AMC.

Clive Cussler's novel Arctic Drift (2008), in which Erebus and Terror contain a mysterious silver metal which holds the key to solving the characters' mystery.

In July 2013, an anonymous miniaturist began reconstructing a 1:48 scale model of HMS Terror, documenting the process on buildingterror.blogspot.com.[22][23] In June 2017, it was announced[24] that the model HMS Terror would be shown alongside the historical model of HMS Erebus (c.1839)[25] in the "Death in the Ice" exhibit[26] at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (July 2017-Jan. 2018).[27] A corresponding Twitter account for "Building Terror"[28] was created in December 2017.

^James, William (1835). The Naval History of Great Britain. 6. London: James Ridgway. p. 235. On the 14th, the combined forces [at Point St Peter], accompanied by the bomb vessels Devastation and Terror..ascended the river to St Marys